Peter Chianca: The old fogey’s guide to new(er) music

Thanks to vast amounts of time on the Internet and my status as spare-time fill-in music critic here at the newspaper, I’ve managed to become familiar with a fair number of artists who’ve actually launched their careers in this millennium -- and much to my surprise, some of them sound not unlike the acts we’ve been listening to on classic rock radio lo these many years.

It’s happened to so many People Of A Certain Age -- you wake up to Foghat’s “Slow Ride” blaring through your little clock radio, and you suddenly realize you’ve been listening to the same 100 classic rock songs over and over again for the last 25 years. If that’s not enough to make you pull the covers back over your head, I don’t know what will.

But what to do? Sure, some 40-somethings are hip to the new sounds, and you can tell by the fact that they would never, under any circumstances, use the phrase “hip to the new sounds.” But the musically clueless are out of luck: Turn on Top 40 radio and they’re all playing the latest Katy Ke$ha Gaga song on continuous loop; ask your kids and they’ll just roll their eyes in a fashion that indicates serious strain on the optic nerves, and then Instagram their friends about how weird you are.

Fortunately, thanks to vast amounts of time on the Internet and my status as spare-time fill-in music critic here at the newspaper, I’ve managed to become familiar with a fair number of artists who’ve actually launched their careers in this millennium -- and much to my surprise, some of them sound not unlike the acts we’ve been listening to on classic rock radio lo these many years.

So never fear, fogeys -- grab some of the music below based on your own personal tastes, and never again feel out of touch. And no, I’m not talking about the Hall and Oates song, although now you’re going to have it in your head for the rest of the day.

1) If you like Led Zeppelin, try The Black Keys: For all its hard rock trappings -- the hair, the bare chests, everything John Bonham did, ever -- at the end of the day, Zep was essentially a blues band. (A hairy, bare-chested, very loud blues band.) The Keys may be a little (OK, a lot) more laid back, but sonically they share quite a bit with Led Zeppelin’s gruff and muddy blues-drenched early work. And what the Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney lack in flamboyance they make up in not suffocating on their own vomit.

2) If you like Paul Simon, try Josh Ritter: No one mixes whimsy and melancholy quite like rhymin’ Simon, but Ritter, on an increasingly impressive body of folk-rock, sure comes close. Like Simon, Ritter tackles subjects like personal alienation, divorce and romantic ennui and somehow remains uplifting, or at least doesn’t make you want to drive off the road -- “New Lover,” off Ritter’s new album “The Beast in Its Tracks,” has a bouncy matter-of-factness that recalls classic Simon songs like “Slip Sliding Away.” Bonus: Ritter also writes songs about mummies.

If you like Queen, try fun.: The one group here you’ll actually hear on Top 40 radio thanks to the unexpected success of 2012’s “Some Nights” LP, fun. and its leader Nate Ruess may not share the sheer audacity of Freddie Mercury and company. But the group’s penchant for outre arrangements and a certain baroque frenzy make them more than worthy of inheriting Queen’s theatrical quirk-rock mantel -- or at least ELO’s. Meanwhile, Ruess’ slightly skewed take on the everyday challenges of simply being human keeps them appealingly grounded in the real world.

If you like Bruce Springsteen, try The Gaslight Anthem: If there’s one defining trait that Springsteen brings to his work, it’s sincerity. And it just so happens Jersey’s own Gaslight Anthem has that quality in droves -- not to mention a lyrical penchant for girls in swaying dresses, edges of towns and secrets revealed through open car windows. Frontman Brian Fallon throws himself so un-winkingly into his delivery that you can’t help but get caught up; he makes you feel like hand-scrawled words on lined paper really can save your soul. And the thousand guitars and pounding drums don’t hurt either.

If you like Talking Heads, try Arcade Fire: When Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” won Album of the Year in 2011, many people were left asking the age-old question: Who the heck is Arcade Fire? (Well, at least Katy Perry’s fans were asking that.) If you love the Talking Heads, hopefully you’ve figured out the answer for yourself -- Win Butler’s affected, almost spooky, delivery recalls David Byrne at his quirkiest, even if Arcade Fire’s output tends to be more anthemic than the Heads’ deadpan verse. And both bands deal in biting observations about a world so much weirder than they are.

And if you like Foghat? Probably best if you stick with your clock radio.

Peter Chianca is editor in chief for GateHouse Media New England’s north-of-Boston newspapers and websites and author of “Glory Days: Springsteen’s Greatest Albums.” Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca.